


Gordon, Maybe You Should Drive

by LemonKith



Category: Barenaked Ladies (Band)
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 06:29:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7628659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonKith/pseuds/LemonKith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their songs only gave us a glimpse into the start of their stories.</p><p>After their songs are done, and after they meet, these two have a lot more story to tell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hello City

Ugh. Soak her shoes going through the flooded-out road, or walk by the freak?

Either way, she wasn’t going backwards, back to _him_.

At least the green-hooded freak seemed completely consumed with staring up at the rain, letting it splash on his face and run down his soaked clothes. Webbed toes she may have had but these were decent shoes, ones she decided were worth chancing the freak-option of the two paths home to protect.

He didn’t seem to notice her pace swiftly behind him. She noticed his green hood though- Or rather, his green head.

She stopped, staring at the back of the man’s head to check it wasn’t a trick of the low evening light. At least, he looked like a man. But a man with a green head? She had thought it was just the hood to his odd, gold cloak but no, his skin really was-

“This is weather!”

“Ah!” She startled back at his sudden, spinning exclamation and managed to trip over herself. All this and now she had a wet ass too. Just great.

“Oh dear! Would you prefer to be upright?” he offered his hand down to her without it leaving his cloak.

She deliberately ignored it, standing up without the man’s help. She was going to go with man, even if he had green skin on the front of his face as well as the back; he sounded and looked like a man. Admittedly his head looked like some kind of fruit to be honest but there was no need to engage someone like him further pointing that out. “I’m going home.” She pulled her jacket closer and quickly walked away from him.

Oh no. He was following her. “Do you know where I can find pizza?” he called out.

She paused, “There’s a shop on Dundas Street,” pointing the direction for him in the hope that would end this. But glancing back for her safety, his expression had remained blank. Figures with that kind of skin; not from round here. “...You can follow me, I guess.” It was only a small detour now she was nearly home anyway.

“Yes, I can follow you!” Oh God. She hurried on quicker, making sure to stay a few steps away from him. “What is pizza?”

She had hoped he wouldn’t talk on the way; now she was too puzzled to care. “You said you wanted pizza.”

“Yes. I’d like to learn about pizza,” he confirmed.

Okay, he was _really_ not from round here. Maybe African or something? One of those hidden tribes in the Amazon? His accent sounded Canadian though.

She didn’t know what to say, just hurried on through the rain with him trailing like a meandering but eager puppy.

“Is there a mountain near here?” he asked.

“There’s some hills and skiing areas. And the escarpment I guess.”

“Is there a river?”

“There’s the Rouge, the Humber and the Don around here.” Definitely must be a tourist.

He had stopped to look at a tree but caught back up quickly when she glanced back. “Can I follow you to those next?”

“No. I’m going home after this, alone,” she made clear.

“Okay. I’ll find them myself if they’re around here.” He started looking around already, seeming hopeful. “Thank you. Although it would help if you hadn’t put all these buildings in the way.”

“That’s sort of the point of a city,” she commented, a little interested what he had hoped to see coming to Toronto except buildings.

“’City’...” He turned it over like a new word. “I’ve been to cities before but I think I like this one best.”

She stopped, turning around to look at him.

The weird green man – Seriously, was he from Mars or something? – was just smiling up at the Toronto buildings in the rain. If that was face paint, it was some very water-resistant stuff; there were pink stripes near his eyes but they didn’t look like his actual skin showing through. He noticed her watching after a moment and turned to her, smiling too.

“Who _are_ you?” she finally asked.

“My name is Gordon,” he said cheerfully. “What’s yours?”

She looked at him, at the glowing sign for pizza down the street, then walked on towards it with a gesture for him to follow. “Jane St. Clair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know where the idea for this bizarre meeting even came from, it was a joke of Ed's from [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jtVnwCwRM4) (0:50-1:10)
> 
> For reference, this is [Jane's music video ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkg8pkCPDLo)
> 
> And [Gordon's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU-_YFOkdXM) (The Ballad of Gordon was a PSA BNL did for Fox)


	2. New Kid (On The Block)

There was that Gordon freak again.

Today he was stood in the same spot on the paved area in Runnymede Park appreciating the clouds instead. Again his back was to her and Jane paused, watching him watch the sky with that rapt attention.

A couple of teenage boys came by that way, noticed him and steered widely clear of Gordon, heading on towards her. They didn’t steer clear of her, walking closer so their inept, overzealous eyebrow waggling was intolerably obvious.

Jane walked past them and up to Gordon instead. She stood awkwardly behind him until some sixth sense seemed to notice her, causing him to turn around. “Hello, Jane St. Clair!” He was smiling and raptly attending to her now.

“Just Jane is fine.”

“‘Just Jane’?”

“Jane.”

“Jane.”

Well, at least they got there in the end. “What are you doing?” she asked.

He pointed up under his cloak towards the sky. “The weather is different today; I’ve got a lot to learn about. Your clouds are really big!”

“Uh-huh...” Jane glanced around as casually as possible, seeing if the boys were gone yet.

“Will you take me to mountains today?” Gordon asked with his ever-unfailing cheer. “I looked around but I couldn’t find any after you left yesterday.”

“What? No, the mountains are too far for me to take you to.” Good, the boys were gone.

“Will you take me to rivers?”

“I have to get home and study,” she said, already walking away.

He followed her again; Jane really hoped they weren’t getting into a habit. “I don’t understand. Are you taking me to a river? I want to share a river with you, Jane.”

“Share...?” She paused and he circled round in front of her, as cheerful and green as ever. Jane eyed him up, frowning. Was he talking about sharing the experience of going to a river? As in... “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Gordon scowled for the first time. “Hey! I know what a date is; it’s fruit! Are you insulting me?”

“What the hell? No, you weirdo! Don’t you know what a date is?”

Gordon pointed under his suit to something small and brown nearby on the ground that shouldn’t have been left on the ground. “Like that?”

“A _romantic_ date.”

“What’s ‘romantic’?” he asked.

Somehow Jane wasn’t surprised he hadn’t had a girlfriend before. “Don’t worry about it. Real romance doesn’t exist anyway...” She walked on.

Gordon followed. “Are we going to a river or not, Jane?”

“I’m going home.”

“And that’s not a river?”

“No.” Now she was starting to snap.

“Oh. I understand now, Jane.”

Jane took a few further steps before finding she couldn’t. She couldn’t leave Gordon just stood here in the street; someone might have seen them and blame her for whatever trouble he inevitably caused. And... “Don’t you know anyone else, Gordon?”

Surprised that she had turned back to him, he trotted up closer. “Know? No. I haven’t been here long.”

“Well, try meeting some other people already.”

“I’ve met other people,” Gordon said cheerfully. “They weren’t as nice as you though.”

“I bet.” The great mystery was why she was as nice as she was to him.

“They tried to take my special suit,” Gordon complained. “Then they told me they were going to shoot me if I didn’t put my hands up.”

“Did you have a run in with the police?” And if they had been about to shoot him, didn’t that make him a criminal? Then again, Jane felt rather like shooting him herself; maybe he had tried to ‘share a river’ with them too.

“‘The police’? No, there were three polices,” he tried. So much for having at least mastered English.

What to do? This idiot wouldn’t last another week on the streets without having more interactions with some ‘polices’. And he wasn’t the most awful guy; Jane had a lot of experience to know that.

Jane sighed. “Are you doing anything tomorrow?”

“What’s ‘Tomorrow’?”

Jane kept her exasperation in check. “Tomorrow, as in when the sun has gone down then come back up.”

“Oh!” Gordon looked happy. “I’m being alive and learning more!”

“Do you want to go to a river with me then?” she offered.

“Tomorrow? Sure! Tomorrow we can share a river, Jane!”

“I’ll meet you at the park, 10am.” She doubted he had a watch or understanding of time but he didn’t ask.

Maybe after he’d seen a river he would stop following her around; she could always hope. And... it might be kind of fun to find out why he wanted to share a river so much, Jane supposed.


	3. Everything Old Is New Again

Gordon was in the park appreciating sunshine today, still with that gold cloak on. He must really love that thing; she didn’t think she’d ever actually seen his arms come out from under it.

He did his usual following like a zealous puppy after noticing and saying hello to her. She was going to have to get a collar and leash for him if this was going to keep happening-

No. Today was the final time. She’d satisfy his curiosity about rivers but then she was done with this random kindness towards him. She must have completed her whole ‘kindness to a stranger’ quota for the year on Gordon.

They were heading for Black Creek in east Smythe Park. It didn’t take that long thankfully, Jane having picked the closest possible river, before they were at the bank on a grassy verge.

“That’s a river?” Gordon went right up close, stopping at a distance that made Jane feel uncomfortable just watching.

“Yeah. It’s nothing fantastic. Just moving water.”

“But there’s so much of it up here right under the sunlight!” Gordon cheered, toeing even further at the rushes edging the bank. “Can we go on it?”

“On it? _In_ it, and no.” Or he could. He could drown and do her a favour for all she cared.

Gordon took his time staring at the river, crouching closer, trying to reach it then throwing grass and small stones in. Jane sat and just admired the day, only taking notice of him like a very tired mother with a 5-year-old she wouldn’t mind accidentally losing when turning her back for a second.

Her appreciation was interrupted when Gordon came to sit on the grass beside her, beaming and thrilled. “I like the river. Do you like the river, Jane?”

She looked at it. “It’s just a river. It’s kind of green too, like you.”

Gordon peered a little competitively at it now. “...It’s not _that_ green.”

“Why are you green anyway?” Jane’s curiosity finally beat out her politeness.

“Why are you very pale pink?”

Was he being obtuse or offended? “Most people in Canada are this colour.” She looked him over, his green skin and the mess of black curls on his head. “You’re not a normal colour for humans anywhere on Earth. Where _are_ you from?”

“I’m from a planet near a star but you wouldn’t know it. It’s very far,” Gordon leant back and said oh-so-casually.

So casually Jane almost caught herself believing him for a moment. “Right, you’re an alien. That just happened to land here in Toronto, in my life.”

“Yes, an alien,” he confirmed.

“Then how do you know English?” she challenged.

“You sent messages out into space. I used them to learn the basics of your language before I landed.”

“Right...” She wasn’t believing this ‘alien’ spiel but it was something different enough to be interesting she supposed.

“What do you do with rivers?” Gordon asked.

“Fish in them. Dump stuff in them. Just let them flow,” she answered lackadaisically.

“Why do you fish out the stuff you dump in?” he asked. “What was the point of dumping it?”

“We don’t- They aren’t connected activities.”

“Oh.”

Jane rolled her eyes and eventually looked at him when he hadn’t said more. “Was this all you wanted to do with the river?”

“Yes, I’ve learnt about it now.” He cocked his head a little too hard, cartoonishly so. “I don’t know what to learn about next though. Are there any other bits of geography here in Toronto that are interesting?”

“In Toronto? Not really. Cities are pretty boring really, at least for geography.”

Gordon hummed, thinking. “I’ll start learning more humans then, if I’m finished learning about the non-human things here.”

“Is that all you’re here to do, learn about things?” Jane asked.

“Yes. It’s my job.”

“Job?” What kind of a job involved- No wait, the bigger wonder here was that someone had hired Gordon for any job. That reminded her about something too. “If you have a job then you must have some money.” He looked blank but he might just be playing innocent. “You still owe me for that pizza the other day, Gordon.”

It took quite a moment of blank confusion but then, “You want me to give you money for the pizza?” he asked with sudden understanding. “Sure!”

For the first time his arm appeared from under his gold cloak, ending in a slim-fingered green hand that had money in it. Despite her genuine surprise Jane took the money, the full price of the pizza for both of them, and pocketed it, after checking it was legitimate Canadian currency.

Jane looked around at the world of morning Toronto slowly approaching noon. Kids, parents- She looked away from the couple walking by with a sigh. “I need to get home soon and study so-”

“’Study’ means ‘to learn things’, right?” Gordon’s excitement halted her progress back to her feet. “What do you learn about, Jane? We can learn together!”

“I don’t like it. I just have to if I don’t want to be stuck working at that store forever.”

She could see he didn’t understand. “But learning about this world is fun.”

“Maybe it was, once...”

Jane stared down at her feet, flexing her toes inside her shoes. It wasn’t a bad day to be out doing this, wasting time at a river with a near-total stranger. It was all the same in the end, putting up with frustration of one kind or the other to escape ennui.

A ball bumped into her right ankle, rolling into her field of vision from Gordon’s direction. Red and blue with a white stripe, the size of a tennis ball. It was one of those stupid balls everyone had had as a kid.

“You can have my ball for a bit, Jane. I think you need the energy more right now,” Gordon said, the softest he had spoken yet.

Weirdo. It was just a ball; what could it possibly do?

Jane stared and eventually accepted she was going to have to pick it up to protect his feelings.

It sat comfortably in her hands and lap. Slightly squishable, slightly rubbery. She turned it and maybe... Maybe, it did make her feel a little better. Life seemed a bit brighter with the ball in her hands, as if, just for a moment, she could remember that shiny, thrilling way everything felt when you were a 7-year-old with no worries and so much still to learn. It was the feeling of seeing everything old as new all over again-

Oh God, was this ball covered in some kind of tactile drug? She was starting to feel like Gordon acted.

“Thanks.” Jane gave it back. Gordon wouldn’t reach out a hand for it so she just dropped it into his lap.

“Did it help?”

“...I guess.”

“I’m glad! I wasn’t sure if it would react with your biochemistry.”

Oh boy, it really was a drug. “I need to go study.” Jane didn’t give him the chance to drag her into further conversation this time.

Of course he would follow her but Jane had expected that. She just walked quick and didn’t look back.

Gordon didn’t actually say anything until a few streets later when she took a corner. “That’s not the way to home.”

“It’s the way to my home,” she told him, lingering for a moment.

“Oh.” Gordon looked about the intersection and shuffled slightly. “Will you come help me learn things again tomorrow, Jane?”

He really was determined about this learning thing. It was kind of... cute? Weird certainly, but it was hard to dislike somehow. “I might be too busy to come tomorrow,” she lied, giving herself an out.

“Oh. Okay, Jane. Maybe... tomorrow-tomorrow? More tomorrow? Tomorrower?”

She guessed he meant the day after tomorrow, if he perhaps thought it was an adjective or something. Either way, “Maybe,” Jane lied again.

“Okay, Jane!” He turned to cheerfully go, heading back in the direction of Runnymede park. He really must live there after all, not just go there each day to wait for her.

She was starting to get a little used to Gordon, these short interactions each day. It was just like that cat she had walked past each morning on the way to high school during her first year; it had been the cat warming up to her back then, slowly approaching closer from tentative touch to full-on petting until she found herself setting off early just to spend all her free time with it each morning.

And then one morning it hadn’t been there anymore.

Killed, caught by the city, just left... It didn’t matter. The cat hadn’t been there for her anymore; it had abandoned her.

Her way to and from work could go through Runnymede Park or not just as easily. She never had to walk by that way again, and he didn’t know where she lived or worked. If she wanted...

Jane turned away to head home, leaving it for herself in the morning to decide.

She ended up deciding there and then though, when she got back to her apartment and put her hand into her pocket for her keys only to pull out, instead of the money Gordon had given her, nothing but green, slightly viscous goo.

She wasn’t going by Runnymede Park again in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He wouldn't be Gordon without his ball, after all.  
> If you know the story behind the band's name, you ought to recognise the ethos the ball, and by extension Gordon, live by.


	4. If I Had $1,000,000 Dollars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know in the music video Jane interacts with another guy but for the purposes of this story the narrator of the song is Steve himself.

Jane didn’t walk through Runnymede Park as decided the next morning.

Gordon, however, hadn’t gotten the memo.

How had he even known where she worked? Oh God, was he some sort of stalker? That would explain why he was always so nice and cheerful when she paid attention to him- And the drugged ball! That drugged ball was probably some sort of attempt to capture her-

Jane’s natural instinct looked away from nervously watching Gordon across the store – He hadn’t come straight up to her, instead choosing to take a long time perusing all the clothing on display; somehow that was even worse – to the new customer who had entered.

Oh, just great. The guy who reminded her Gordon wouldn’t be her first, or even second, encounter with stalking. Well, none of the guys before had gotten to the point of tactile drugs but-

“Hi, Jane.”

Glancing around, Evan had to decide to go on break and leave no one but her to hold down the till. Typically thoughtless male-

“Jane?”

Jane had mastered a bored stare for times like this. She directed it past the guy leaning on the counter to the other, greener guy getting into a glaring contest with a rack of green dresses. Did Gordon think they were some sort of crime against nature or something? He was certainly acting like that.

“Jane...!”

Such a kid; whining for attention. “Do you wanna buy something?” she asked uncaringly to the closer of her current bothers, despite knowing the lack of point in it.

“I want to talk to you, Jane.”

Pleading too; even better. “What about?”

“I, um, I’m not very good with words. Did you get the letter I sent?” He edged a bit closer, forcing himself into her line of sight. “You should have got it a couple of days ago.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Well, did you?”

“Look, Steve.” She finally snapped and turned on him, too weary to put in real anger though. “Even if I did get it, I wouldn’t have read it. And even if I had accidentally read it, it wouldn’t change my mind. You and I... it’s better if we just stay friends.”

“Why? Are you seeing someone else?”

“It’s not that. You’re just...” She took in the stupid, droopy moustache, the blond hair dye starting to grow out of his roots that she had once put in. “You try too hard to be mature, to please me. You’re trying too hard now to win me back. Not to mention the silly gifts.”

Humbled, sadly not defeated, Steve recovered from the setback after a moment and tried to take her hand unsuccessfully. “Jane... Jane, I just want a chance, another chance so I can prove to you that life would be better if we were together. Your smile, your beauty.” She stared out the window. “Oh, sweet Jane St. Clair, I just-”

Steve was interrupted by the same thing that startled Jane.

Her hand had been grabbed and lifted up. Turning, she found Gordon behind the counter, holding her wrist in-

Oh God. What was _that_?!

He had raised her hand to his face for the apparent purpose of pressing it to his nose to sniff before letting her retract it away as fast as a whip.

She stared in horror. Steve stared in jealous bewilderment. Gordon said, “Jane’s not sweet. She’s kind of salty.”

“Who the hell do you think you are, buddy?” Jane would have said Steve looked ready to launch himself over the counter if he had the athleticism.

“I’m Gordon. And I’m not from Hell; I’m from-”

“He’s new around here,” Jane cut in before she heard that rhyming, little phrase again. Or more importantly Steve heard it, and then the police.

“...He sniffed you!” Steve objected, as well as gesturing to Gordon’s general being-behind-the-counter.

“Yeah...” Jane wasn’t too hot on that either. But she looked at Gordon standing there, his open, honest eyes and the effeminate streaks of pink beside them. He was waiting on her right now. And yet he’d just sniffed her hand, right here in public. He’d bothered her to take him to mountains and rivers just because he wanted to look at them with her. All he wanted to do with her was share simple things and learn about the world together. He was like no other man Jane had ever known. “Gordon’s my new boyfriend,” she said.

Gordon cocked his head, although a little too far as usual for him.

Steve gaped like a fish. “This... freak?!”

Jane leant on the counter, right at Steve. “Unlike some people, I don’t judge and pick my partners based on their appearance.”

Steve recoiled, scalded. “He’s green!” needed to be yelped though.

“Do you have a problem with the colour of my skin, buddy?” Gordon leant in too.

He didn’t know rivers but he knew racism. Figures.

“Uh, n-no...” Steve backed off a bit. While Gordon wasn’t actually a ‘tough guy’, probably, pretty much everyone looked like a ‘tough guy’ in Steve’s eyes.

“Well?” Jane asked Steve.

He ummed and erred, and eventually backed down with a simple, “Sorry...” before leaving. Such a coward.

Jane kept her eye on him as he left, meeting his occasional glances back, noting the bracelet he thought he shoplifted surreptitiously but saying nothing. How typical: At first willing to pay and be polite, then men just take what they want.

“Now,” Gordon attracted her attention back a few moments after Steve had left for good, “I know what a friend is, and I like that part a lot.” Oh God, at least there weren’t any other customers around at the moment. “But what’s a ‘boy’? I don’t know that part.”

Jane looked him – them? – up and down, and then past Gordon to salvation. “Juliana! Would you mind covering the till while I help this... customer?”

A little reluctant and awkward – Jane had stopped her while she was staring at Evan from afar – Juliana agreed, steering widely clear of Gordon though as Jane dragged him away into the staff bathroom. Gordon looked around it a bit confused, then expectantly at her.

“You want to know what a boy is?” He nodded. “Of course you need to because you’re not... Show me your hand.”

“I don’t have hands.”

Precisely the problem. “Show me your arm. That.” Jane pointed to where something like arms were moving under his gold cloak.

Gordon lifted one up, shaking back the material to expose his arm and the thing that was definitely not a hand at the end. Yep, that was definitely a green tentacle thing. “You really are an alien,” Jane said for her own sake.

“I thought I told you that, Jane.”

His tentacle wasn’t bad to the touch; it was like the back end of snake and curled around her fingers when she touched it. It was dry and smooth like a snake as well, not at all slimy-

“Wait. You had a hand the other day,” Jane said. He looked as confused as she did. “When you gave me money, you definitely had a hand.”

“Oh, give money?” She watched as the tentacle morphed into a green, slim-fingered human hand holding money. Next to her own still holding it, Jane could now see it was an exact copy of hers and the money was the exact amount the pizza had cost yet again.

Jane really laughed for the first time she could remember in a long while. “You thought it’s a gesture and learnt to mimic it!”

“It’s not a gesture?”

“Money’s an object we give each other; how do you make the money?” He let her take the note and coins from his newly formed hand to examine. It looked extremely legitimate for something he had only watched her do once in the pizza shop.

“I make it like making a hand.”

“But how? It’s separate to you.” She turned the coins round in her hand, reading the lettering too. All convincing until you looked very close up and he hadn’t got the details there. The note was the same but by that point Jane was starting to think that the coins, despite looking right, felt a little soft. She remembered that old biting trick from the movies but she wasn’t sure she wanted to- “What’s happening?!” The money was starting to green in her hand, turning quickly softer and softer.

“I didn’t put in much energy to hold it together for long this time,” Gordon said. “It’s breaking back down.”

Well, that explained where that green goo in her pocket had come from before. “What is this stuff? Is it safe?” she asked, looking to the sink.

“It’s... Well, it’s my blood and flesh unlike you humans who have separate ones. The human word for it would be something like ‘craft’.” Looked about as appetising as the dinners of the same name... “And it’s not hurt you yet, has it?”

“No, I don’t think so.” It just sat there being warm and not too wet actually, a little sticky but easy to get off her skin cleanly.

“Then it should be safe for humans. I’ve never known it to hurt any other species.” Gordon’s tentacle, back to not a hand, reached out to take it back. It stuck to him very easily, seemingly naturally attracted to its kind, and re-absorbed into him.

He really had a tentacle. He really was an alien. Here, in Toronto, in her life.

Why was she believing any of this?

“Jane?” Gordon snapped her attention back. “You never explained what a ‘boy’ is to me, Jane.”

“Oh, right. A boy is... a type of human,” she started awkwardly, unwrapping her head from the alien-thing to deal with this.

“I’m your type-of-human-friend?” He frowned and cocked his head once more. “I’m not even human though, Jane.”

“No, it’s one word. A ‘boyfriend’ is a different thing. It means...” She looked at him gullibly waiting for her answer. “...It means you’re special to me, that I like you particularly, more than other people.” Jane rubbed her shoe on the floor and waited for his response. Was there gum stuck to the bottom or something?

“...Oh! Like a special-friend!” he eventually got, even if she didn’t. It sounded as if he was translating things into ‘human’ again. “I like that. You’re my special-friend too, Jane- No wait. You’re my boyfriend too, Jane!”

She found herself laughing again despite it all; he was just so earnestly happy about it. “No, I’m-“ She paused, gathering herself to give it another go. “There are different types of human: Boys and girls. I’m a girl-type, so I’m your...” Jane hesitated on actually saying it.

It only took a moment for Gordon to put together, “...Oh! You’re my girlfriend, Jane?”

Her hesitation tried to hold on but looking into Gordon’s waiting gaze, so eager to know he was right. She almost wondered if he was eager to get it right for her sake instead of his. But looking at him beaming like that, so excited for whatever he was going to learn about next, “...Yeah, I’m your girlfriend, Gordon,” Jane agreed.

He got such a grin on him she couldn’t regret it. “So these types of humans,” he started asking next; “what’s the difference between them?”

“Ah...” Oh boy, explaining that... “I need to get back to work now, Gordon. I’ll explain it another time, okay?” He accepted that. “You can’t stay in here.”

“Can I stay in the bigger room? I like learning about the different kinds of suits and material you have.”

“You can stay in the store, sure,” she supposed, since he hadn’t caused complete havoc in any way yet. “Just try to stay away from all the other people until then. Don’t bother anyone.”

“Can I bother you?”

Jane would have thought he was trying to be cheeky if his species had the capacity for it. “No. Just go glare at the green dresses again or something,” Jane joked, although she suspected he’d follow it anyway.

Gordon followed her out, heading back to the green dresses indeed. And then on to bothering her in other ways, messing up clothing displays and repositioning the mannequins, all of which she needed to fix.

But still, when she caught him with yet another mannequin’s dismembered arm, held out with a pleased smile, Jane didn’t find herself regretting this after all.


	5. Alternative Girlfriend

Jane didn’t like to lie. Being able to truthfully say she had a boyfriend was a use at university and work; it made the lesser men back off and the idiotic ones try to outdo whomever she was with. They didn’t even know Gordon because if they did then they would have realised there was no way to outdo him.

Mainly because there wasn’t anything he actually did.

He hung around in the park, followed her to work and back, asked about all sorts things he wanted to learn, wanted to share various experiences with her, occasionally made her other things which ended up turning back into green goo after a few minutes and in general hung on her every word with his odd, blithely cheerful comments. How could anyone outdo that?

How could anyone not outdo that? Gordon was the squishy, green, 6’ equivalent of a humanoid puppy. And he didn’t actually do anything as a boyfriend. Admittedly, he hadn’t asked any more about what being a boyfriend meant, and it also meant Jane didn’t have to think of him as her boyfriend whenever he did something completely embarrassing or annoying. But what was the point in having a boyfriend if he wasn’t going to do all the boyfriend things for you?

If he did though...

Wouldn’t he start acting just like all the rest?

He was an alien but he acted enough of an idiot and annoyed her sufficiently to prove he was a ‘man’ nonetheless. When he’d stayed here a while longer, seen more of other men, he was bound to end up just like one probably.

Maybe it was cooler if they just stayed friends. What could she do with an alien boyfriend anyway?

How to tell him that though? And should she? He had seemed very happy at the idea of being her boyfriend though, or whatever equivalent he understood it as. She didn’t think he was a dangerous sort of alien if this upset him, but she didn’t know that for certain.

“Well, one way to find out...” From the edge of Runnymede Park, five steps forward and she was in range of his alien sixth sense. Gordon had already turned, pleased to see her as Jane approached him a little uncertainly. “Learning about trees today, Gordon?” she asked as she got into talking range.

“Yes. This one has a suit on.” He was peeling the bark off a silver birch, admiring the papery sheets and the different colours on each side.

“You’re going to have to find a new park soon when you’ve learnt about everything in this one,” Jane commented, trying to psych herself up for this.

“If I went to a different park, how would you find me?” He smiled at her, holding out some of the peeled bark in a hand; he’d learnt humans liked to be handed things by an actual hand.

“Do you spend all day here every day just to wait for me?” Jane asked, looking around the empty park with just benches and trees for shelter.

“I spend all night here too. But you never come by at night.”

There was a dead leaf by her foot, still slightly crunchy with frost from the April cold snap Toronto was in right now. “Where do you sleep?”

“I sleep under the trees mostly; there’s one with a good corner over there,” He pointed. Then he seemed to be struck by something. “Do humans sleep all night? Is that why you don’t come by then?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Okay, I’ll stop waiting up for you to come by at night then, Jane.”

She had to look down from his pleased smile at her feet. Even with her shoes on she could still feel how cold the ground was. Glancing across, even though Gordon’s cloak covered his feet nearly all of the time she knew he had bare feet under there from the few glimpses she had gotten. “...Do you want to come live with me, Gordon?” Jane said, looking up at him. He cocked his head in his usual way. “I want to share my home with you every day,” she tried. "Do you understand that?”

“I can come to your home every day?” he guessed.

“You can come stay in my home all the time. You never have to leave, unless you want to go out somewhere.” Because he still looked blank, “Rather than being here in the park waiting for me, you can wait in my home all day and night and see me whenever you like.”

“...Neat!”

Finally. Like any over-affectionate stray, it didn’t take much at all to get him following her home right at her heels after that.

~#~

Gordon understood the concept of a house, even if not an apartment, once they got to Jane’s place. He seemed eager about everything in her apartment though; Jane stood watching him run around, peering at everything up close with his face. If he started licking any of it...

“I should have asked,” Jane interrupted his admiration of his own reflection in her TV screen, “do you have any things you need to move from the park, Gordon?”

“Things? No, I’ve got everything I need with me.” He produced that red, blue and white ball from inside his cloak.

That was really it? “All right, just don’t go throwing that around in here.”

“Throwing it around? Why would I do that?” His tentacle curled a little more around the ball.

“I mean, that’s what humans normally do with balls like that,” she thought. “What do you do with it?”

“It makes me live,” Gordon said, kneeling backwards on her sofa to talk. “I don’t get most of my energy from food like you humans; I just need this.”

She had seen him eat and drink at times, but for the sake of her grocery bill if this was going to be permanent... “How does it work?”

“It takes in energy of any form, mostly heat and light, and converts it into... Biologically Nurturing Lifeforce energy,” he said, just throwing in words he liked the feel of by the sound of it.

“Biological energy,” Jane tried to go with for short. Or maybe she should go with BNL energy to appease him.

“Something like that. I’m still getting the hang of speaking human.”

“So, you’d die without it?” she checked.

“Mmhm! Those three polices tried to take it along with my suit.”

Had he escaped? Or been set free? Was he still a fugitive and hunted by the police? Would she be in trouble for taking him in here?

Did he know what any of that meant to bother asking?

Gordon had become distracted again by the clock he could see behind her.

Oh well. At least things were always an adventure with Gordon around...

Jane told him she’d be in her bedroom studying but he was free to keep looking around her house. She still had that unfinished paper due tomorrow and after she’d interrupted a perfectly free morning just to go to the park and tell him-

The complete opposite of what she had happened, Jane realised.

Why did things never work out the way she wanted with guys?


	6. Wrap Your Arms Around Me

If Jane had had to write a care guide for a Gordon – Or a lledelro as he said his species was called – it wouldn’t have been long:

  * Make sure he has his ball at all times
  * Give him plenty to learn about
  * Be prepared to share everything with him



No notes on feeding, bathing or housetraining. He apparently didn’t need those things so long as he had his ball. (She wasn’t convinced about the bathing part, that he wasn’t just an 8-year-old kid looking to avoid bath time, but he didn’t smell bad yet.)

Actually, he did need to use the bathroom if he ate or drank human foods and liquids – And even some things that weren’t human foods or liquids – which Gordon seemed inclined to do sometimes for the sake of learning. He seemed to enjoy watching her cook and wanted to share her meals. That she hadn’t had to teach him how to use the toilet was one blessing she supposed.

Gordon slept in a corner even with the offer of the sofa. He would curl up in a corner at night holding his ball and go still, more like a TV in stand-by considering the speed and ease he woke with at the slightest noise or change in his surroundings.

He spent a lot of his time learning by one way or another, watching TV with the subtitles on to master written English so he could start reading more books. Having to teach her supposed boyfriend the basics right from the letters of the alphabet and celebrating the milestones as he started mastering words like ‘dog’ and ‘ball’ by all rights ought to have been very strange but it wasn’t as if Gordon was unintelligent, he just had so much to learn Jane soon realised. Of all the courses she could have been doing at uni, Anthropology was coming in very handy; Gordon seemed to be on Earth for much the same reason as her subject in the form of some sort of interstellar ethnography.

Bits of his culture and interstellar life came up here and there as comparisons to help him understand human life but all in all he seemed more inclined to learn than teach. Jane was comfortable with that at first while still trying to get to mental grips with him actually being an extraterrestrial, but she soon found curiosity into the glimmers he gave of life in space was growing inside of her. They may have been so very far apart in understanding each other still when she had the idea of about 3,000 intelligent species in the Milky Way galaxy alone to wrap her head around while he didn’t understand to peel a banana before trying to eat it, but it increasingly felt like they wanted the same thing.

What that thing was, Jane wasn’t quite sure herself for all she definitely felt it. Gordon wanted to learn, and now once again she found herself wanting to. She wanted to share these human customs and experiences with him, hear what someone had to say that made the life she was so bored of seem new again.

She’d originally started talking to him out of kindness. It wasn’t kindness keeping him in her apartment now, but Jane wasn’t sure what it had evolved into instead.

Sometimes Gordon still frustrated or tired her – Constantly explaining every last thing you did like why you grated carrot but cut cucumber into slices or why you needed to rub moisturiser into your hands could quickly grow tediously wearisome – and with his inability to do most basic household tasks it wasn’t as if he gave her that ‘just nice to come home to someone’ satisfaction either.

He would insist on following her around during her daily life still, which was always a pain because of the attention he drew. He got stares but surprisingly few questions; probably everyone was too afraid to approach and ask them. By now, a few people at the shops and classes she frequented even seemed to have accepted Gordon as her new...

Pet?

She did sometimes have to leave him outside places to wait for her like a dog. He couldn’t be trusted to go off alone. And all he did at home was pretty equivalent to a pet really, when he wasn’t being like an adopted child. No cuddling or kissing and so on. Now that she was finally past the green thing, Jane had started to notice other things about Gordon: His eyes and lips were definitely too pretty to be human, and he seemed to have a body shaped not dissimilar to a human under his suit, not that he’d let her see that.

When she tried to lean against him whilst watching TV, he moved away apologetically.

When she thought about going out on some sort of date, all she could think of was all the constant questions he’d be asking.

And whenever she could dare to get up close into his personal space he kept smiling as if it was nothing special. She couldn’t kiss a smile as dumb and innocent as that.

“I guess it’s because we’re different species...” Jane ignored the neighbour who gave her a look for talking to herself as she picked up her mail. She didn’t care; they had a bad temper anyway. “Could we even do _that_?” What was the point in having a boyfriend if they couldn’t-? “I’m home.” Jane stashed her frustrations once again as the door shut behind her; she’d take them out later alone in bed.

“Hello, Jane!” Gordon was in his usual reading position lying on his back across the sofa, tentacles holding the book straight up about two feet above him.

She ignored his cheery response, focusing on herself.

Late lesson. Soup would do. Once everything was out of the can, into the pan, the only noise was its low simmering and Gordon’s occasional page turns. Couldn’t he at least watch TV or something noisy? He did seem to love music and singing but that was a bit too noisy.

Why couldn’t he say something?

“Gordon, could you shut the curtains?” Jane called after a few too many minutes staring at the dismal twilight grey outside. It was meant to be June right now...

“Sure!”

He obeyed just like a dog, leaving his book with perfect, eidetic memory of the exact page and word he had been on. One rail drawn, then the second in here. Gordon wandered off to the bedroom after that. Jane noticed he didn’t come back but he was forever getting distracted.

She only actually thought about him when she realised she hadn’t heard the sound of the curtain being drawn in there. That was two minutes into eating her soup.

He was standing at the open window in her bedroom leant with his elbows, or whatever equivalent, on the sill. He was being very still for a bundle of green eagerness in a flashy, gold suit.

He didn’t notice her walking up to him. “Homesick?”

“Sick?” Gordon looked at her, away from the first stars out tonight. “I’m not ill, Jane.”

“It means do you miss your home? Are you feeling sad about not being there?”

“No, I became a space explorer for a reason because I can handle being away. I like it here.”

“Do you know which star your planet’s around?”

He scanned. “Mm... No. I’m not sure now. All I know is that it’s in this galaxy.”

“Will you have to go back at any point, to report what you’ve found for example?”

“There are things I have to take back at some point but not soon. I’m going to stay here with you for a long time first, Jane,” Gordon said. “You can come with me when I go back, if you like.”

“Maybe...” It wasn’t really her main interest right now. Jane swirled a shape in her soup; it looked kind of like a G. She put her spoon straight through the middle of it. “Did you want to try some of this?”

“Sure! I like thin-food!”

“It’s called soup.” She held the spoon up for him, to his mouth. Gordon ate obediently.

His eyes were looking straight into hers though, not watching the spoon. He didn’t object to the temperature of the soup, just stared with his occasional blinks.

Jane looked away as soon as he was done, ignoring whether he was still staring at her as she finished her soup with the same spoon. If it was warm from him – His body did keep a normal, living temperature – she couldn’t tell.

She just kept seeing his open, golden eyes whenever she closed her own to think.

Why did he have to have such long lashes? And what were those pink stripes by his eyes even for? She’d never asked.

Her soup was soon done. Unable to resist, she found herself reaching for his nearest stripe while he was looking at the stars again.

“Ah!” He flinched away from the touch but not in pain.

“Sorry. I wanted to know what those pink stripes are.”

“They’re sensitive, that’s what they are.” His hand, or whatever, was hovering by them a bit defensively.

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t angry, as ever, though. Her apology had set him smiling again now all was forgiven and potentially forgotten. Jane hesitated, looking at him. “...Do you mind being touched, Gordon? Do you like it?”

“I don’t like being touched when it hurts but I like touching nice people in non-painful ways; it lets me share their energy like reading it. You have a very interesting energy, Jane.”

“You take energy from me?” No wonder he was so immensely tiring to deal with. “Like your ball?”

“I don’t take it, just read it like a book. Um...” He hesitated and let his tentacle tap on his nose in thought.

The other one, the closer one, was still resting on the sill. Jane placed her own hand on it gently and let it curl backwards around hers. “What do I feel like?”

“Like a sun kept behind clouds, or like a flower when it rains.”

“You sound like my high school poetry teacher.” That confused him. She hadn’t found time to teach him about poetry yet, had she? “That doesn’t make any sense to me, Gordon.”

“Doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why you feel like that to me...” He peered with off-putting intensity right at her face. “What do I feel like, Jane?”

“Humans can’t feel like that,” she said.

“Oh.” Gordon pulled back with a thoughtful frown. “I really don’t know how you get by; there’s so much you can’t do!”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t do too...” She had only meant to mutter the vague comment to herself. His head flopped onto one side though in question. Jane sighed, squeezing a little firmer on his tentacle. “You never take that suit off for one,” she gave him the first answer she could think of to deflect things.

“Why would I? It’s my special suit.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“It’s mine.”

“That’s not really a reason.” She placed her hand on it, pressing until she could feel his chest beneath. Feeling it gently there... He was so real and solid...

She couldn’t take it.

Jane slipped her arms around his sides, fingers fisting in the material of his suit as she tucked her head onto his left shoulder.

“What’s this?” Gordon asked. “Are you feeling me in some other human way, Jane?”

“Idiot...” She was so nearly happy.

“Hey.” As she’d counted on, Gordon mimicked the new gesture he had encountered and wrapped his arms around her, holding just as tightly as she held him. “This is weird; are we exchanging something?”

No more talking.

_Just hold me already._

She concentrated on the human-like body under the suit, not the tentacles curled on her shoulder blades. This was her hope, just for one night.

Gordon let her stay there until it was truly dark outside. Whatever this human action was, it sure went on for a long time.

~#~

Although it was the spare pillow Jane awoke holding the next morning, she had an imagination that let her return to last night, the hug before a normal evening of watching TV and having to deliver a couple of lengthy explanations about new things Gordon had seen before finally going to bed.

The pillow was softer than he had been but had about the right amount of warmth to it, absorbed from her. It didn’t have his scent though, that weird, like nothing you were meant to smell, scent. It was like the smell of space and pure energy. She hadn’t realised the scent was actually him and not just a change in the general air quality of the apartment for the first week.

What was he up to now?

Gordon would know she had woken up, somehow, and no doubt trot in soon if she didn’t get up herself. It was always, “How can humans spend so much time resting when there’s so much to learn?” or something like that.

Maybe she should wait and see what he would say today.

“...Gordon?” Jane asked 15 minutes later as she walked out of her room. She looked around, in the kitchen area too. “Gordon?” She walked back into her room, to the bathroom – He sometimes needed to go in there – and to her wardrobe to open it – Who knows? – and even under her bed.

Jane sat down harshly on her bed.

“Traitor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious about Gordon's species name, try separating it into four sets of two letters. That's the only hint I'll give.


	7. Blame It On Me

The first attempt she made to go further with him and he left.

Traitor.

He hadn’t taken anything but he hadn’t left anything, a clue or note even, anything to come back for either.

Traitor.

Gordon had become just like every other man.

Traitor.

Jane had been free of him for nearly three days now. She wished he had owned some stuff so she could throw it out, smash it, just have something left that represented him to take her feelings out on.

Sometimes she would wonder if he had gone elsewhere on Earth or back into space, back to his home planet. Then she would remember, _“I’m going to stay here with you for a long time first, Jane,”_ and she’d do some acceptable, unfeminine form of punching the nearest object.

What was this? A ‘Maybe it’s cooler if we just stay friends’?

That wasn’t fair.

The fact he was practically the first man who wanted to be more than friends was the reason she had- Jane finally admitted it: She had fallen for him. And she wasn’t good enough for him to stay with or even tell the truth to apparently.

There was a part of her brain reflecting on how similar, with one big difference, this situation was to many before. That part could shut up though; it had done nothing to help win Gordon over while he was still here.

Back to work, back to studying so she could get a better job, secure a financial future and a good life in order to...

What was the point without someone to share it all with?

Jane knew what all human men were like though. They weren’t something worth living for.

Maybe she could adopt a child like she’d always planned, an orphaned girl just like her she could teach not to make all these mistakes she had. She was tossing that idea around inside her head as she climbed up from her empty mailbox back to her apartment. Having a kid, a bundle of energy and keenness for life that wanted to learn and needed a lot of looking after; it’d be just like having Gordon-

“Hello, Jane!”

Back.

Jane walked right up and slapped him.

“Ow!” Gordon rubbed the side of his face, although thankfully not the pink streak by his eye. “That’s the hurting kind of touching I don’t like, Jane.”

“Where the hell were you?!”

Gordon looked blank, and still a little sore in the cheek. He pointed towards the door behind her though. “I was out.”

“I know that! Where were you out?!”

“A lot of places. Three days is a lot of time to be in lots of different places.”

“So you know how long you were gone. Why were you gone, Gordon?”

He paused. “...You’re angry at me, Jane.” He actually sounded surprised.

“Yes, I’m angry at you! You left without any reason or note,” Traitor, “and now, for whatever reason, you think you can just come back like that’s okay?” Coward.

“I’m... not allowed back to share your home anymore?” Gordon asked with his first hint of sadness.

“That depends on the reason you left it in the first place.”

“I had something I wanted to learn about.” It turns out aliens fidget with their tentacles too when they’re nervous. “It took longer than I thought. People kept running away. One guy punched me.”

“Punched- What the hell were you learning about?” And if someone with green skin got a bruise, what colour did it turn?

“Things I couldn’t ask you, Jane.”

Wait, was Gordon being... evasive? He had never been evasive, or lied so far as she knew, before. Unless that had been what he was learning about, that meant, “You’re keeping secrets from me.”

“What are ‘secrets’?”

“Don’t play dumb; you’re hiding something you know from me.” That got right at Gordon’s heart, or whatever organ he had. His expression was torn with pain. “You think I trust you after this, after suddenly leaving and not even giving me any explanation? I ought to kick you out.” The only reason he was even in currently was because he had learnt to make her key with his flesh manipulation thing.

Jane tried to storm past him and finally put her bag down.

Gordon caught her though, his arms in an imitation of or perhaps a real hug. “Please don’t make me stop sharing your home, Jane. It’s the only home I have. You’re the only friend I have.”

...Damn him. If she could only think with her brain and not the rest of her body. “Don’t you ever dare do that again. And I still don’t trust you until you explain what all that was about.”

Gordon’s arms flinched from around her, retracting back under his suit.

“Aren’t you going to apologise?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, Jane.”

It sounded hollow now anyway.

Jane tried to ignore him all evening.

Gordon stayed quiet and ignored, sat with his ball near the corner morosely.

Both he and his ball were gone again the next morning.

~#~

It only took two days this time.

Jane made sure her fingertips hit his pink streak this time. Gordon really recoiled and whined after that.

Jane cut him straight off. “I told you not to do that again!”

“You told me not to hug you again!” Gordon whimpered, still tenderly protecting the side of his face.

“What?! I said-” Jane rewound two days, to what she had said just after Gordon hugged her. “I meant don’t leave again! Not the hug!”

“Well, you weren’t clear!” At least Gordon just turned into whiny kicked-puppy rather than matching her anger. “You’re never clear these days, Jane...”

“What?” She hadn’t caught that.

“’s nothing...” Gordon mumbled sadly, trying to slink away and nurse his wounds.

“Oh no!” Jane grabbed some suit straight away to stop that. Gordon looked back forlornly at the snagged material. “You’re just going to leave again, aren’t you?! If you leave like that once more, Gordon, you’re not welcome back here any longer!”

He wilted even more. “But I have to learn about this.”

“About what?! And why aren’t you telling me?! Have I ever refused to teach you something?!”

Jane told him to ignore the banging under the floor from below – Stupid neighbour and her broom – and answer her already.

Gordon gave a couple of weak tugs on his suit from underneath seeing that it, and he, were caught for good. “But you won’t teach me about this. You want me to know it but you won’t teach me or you would have by now, Jane. So I figured maybe you don’t know it to teach me yourself. Therefore I-”

“What are you talking about, Gordon?”

“I don’t know!” Jane was about to find out if aliens could cry. “I haven’t found out yet! I don’t know where to start so I keep getting lost trying to found out and then you get angry and tell me not to go or come back and I’m all confused now!”

“Gordon, what is it that you’re trying to learn about?” Jane asked very slowly and clearly. “Or that you think I want you to know.”

“You said there’s a lot of things I don’t do,” Had she said that? “and then I could feel from your hand you wanted me to do them so I tried to go find out about them but I couldn’t. You’re never fully happy, Jane, not like other humans, but I think there’s something I can do to make you fully happy.” His tentacles were fidgeting again, tugging weakly on his suit. “I need to go learn it for you, Jane.”

“...You... noticed all that?” It wasn’t fair. He acted more of an idiot than other men but underneath it all... “Please don’t leave again, Gordon.”

Jane hugged him. He guessed hugs were okay then. (He still wasn’t certain they weren’t a weaponisation of the human body designed to keep other beings in place but his research had indicated they were viewed positively on this planet.) Jane had wrapped herself around him so the appropriate response was probably to wrap himself around her in return. “But I need to make you happy, Jane.”

“Then don’t leave.”

“But I don’t...” He stopped, tilting his head so he could look down. “You’re crying. Am I making it worse trying to do this thing?”

She shook her head against him.

“Then I don’t understand. It’s something to do with me, isn’t it? I don’t think you know what I need to do either or you’d tell me so-”

Stupid alien.

At least his lips finally stopped babbling when they were kissed.

It froze him for a moment afterwards while Jane wiped the few tears from her face. “...I saw that when I was trying to learn,” Gordon finally said. “I saw two humans do that and they looked very happy. I went up and asked what it was and if I could try it and the guy punched me! And he called me fruit!”

No good. More tears fell now Jane was laughing. “I imagine he called you ‘a fruit’, Gordon, but never mind.”

“Never mind?” he huffed. “He wouldn’t even tell me what kind of fruit...”

“It’s called a kiss,” Jane explained. “I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you about everything. Just don’t leave me again.”

She was still doing this hugging thing and keeping him from moving. Sneaky humans. “But if you know why didn’t you teach me before?”

Typical that they would have to be alien for you to find a man who was actually _too_ perceptive. “...I was scared. I was scared you’d become just like...” Jane buried her face in his chest. “But now I know you could never be like that...”

“What were you scared of? I’m still confused, Jane.”

“I’ll teach you what a boyfriend’s meant to do, about romance and what I need. It’ll just take time.” She finally released him to look at his face.

It didn’t seem to have alleviated his confusion. “I thought you said ‘romance’, whatever it is, didn’t exist.”

And his memory was too good. Another step away from all other guys. “I didn’t think it did. But I didn’t think aliens existed either.” Jane looked at Gordon. “Now I know better.”

“’Romance’ comes from space too?”

“It did for me.”

Hopefully Gordon would remember these jokes perfectly too.

And one day soon, when he understood them, he would laugh.


	8. I Love You

It was her fault really. She should have- Well, she knew Gordon didn’t know how to do any of the things she expected of him. That he had even been this perceptive and devoted to stay until this point was a miracle Jane would admit she felt a little blessed for.

She never watched rom-coms or read chick-flick novels. Jane had long ago purged all that stuff which only made her real-life rejections and disappointments more painful. They could rent of course, but-

“I still don’t understand. Sorry, Jane...” So many questions had made them both lose the plot before the movie was even halfway yet again.

“It’s all right.” She sighed and pinched her nose. Jane had hoped to avoid this but they were going to have to go right back to basics. His kind obviously didn’t have any kind of romance. And if the ground wasn’t common up here, one of the most likely causes was... “Gordon, how do your species...” Jane steeled herself, “make more of your species?”

“Procreate?”

Oh Lord. “Yes. Procreate.”

“I don’t see why that’s suddenly relevant but if you want to learn,” Jane looked at the doorway longingly but made herself stay, “then of course!” Gordon got himself ready to begin.

After a long, complicated back-and-forth it boiled down to something like, “When we need a new lledelro, two of us mix some genetic material together on their skin. One then carries the baby on their back while it grows-” “On the outside?” “Sure. It’s easier to carry there. And once it grows big enough to walk by itself they detach it and it walks off to live its life.”

“It sounds like budding off or something,” she muttered. “You lot really are like fruit...”

“Hey, what was that?”

“Nothing.” Jane had to ready herself because he was bound to ask-

“How do humans procreate?”

There it was.

Gordon wasn’t there much longer though. He dived behind the sofa once he heard, “It grows inside your internal organs like a parasite?!”

“It’s- Yours sound more like parasites.”

“They don’t take anything from us; we just carry them around to keep them safe from threats while they can’t move.” He was actually kind of glaring, or narrowing his eyes, over the back of the sofa now. She couldn’t see his mouth to complete the expression, only his tentacles holding onto the sofa back to keep it between them. “...Which are you? Male or female?” Figures that lledelros didn’t have genders so Gordon wasn’t actually a man.

“Female.”

His eyes narrowed further. “Do you have a parasite baby growing inside you?”

“No, I’m not pregnant.” And it didn’t sound as if she was going to be at this rate if they reproduced like plants or whatever.

“...Good.” Gordon returned to his seat on the sofa. “I don’t like the idea of you having parasites, Jane.”

No wonder he hadn’t had any sexual desire for her. It didn’t even sound as if they could compatibly mate. Did he even have anything under his-?

“Why are we talking about this, Jane? I thought we were learning about romance.”

Oh boy. If that was how he’d reacted to just the discussion of human sex... “...You remember those nature documentaries we watch, Gordon?”

“Sure! Your animals are fascinating.”

“You know how they often talk about pairs of animals, males and females, as mates...” Jane said.

“Sure!”

Here it comes. “Well, you being my boyfriend means you’re the one I’ve selected as my... mate.”

And there it went, back behind the sofa. Gordon certainly ran away from commitment like a man. “Wait, you want to reproduce with me, Jane?!”

“I don’t think our bodies are even compatible...” she muttered before thinking she couldn’t do much more harm by admitting, “But yeah.”

Oh, apparently she could. Gordon completely disappeared behind the sofa.

Jane looked over the back when she heard moaning. When Gordon noticed her he crawled away to hide round the end, peering around the corner. “I don’t want to catch parasite babies.”

“Females can’t make people pregnant. I doubt you can even make me pregnant.”

“But you want me to,” he said warily.

“I’m kind of young now but maybe one day-” He completely disappeared again. “Gordon.” Now his upper face popped up over the arm. It was like playing Whack-a-Fruit or something. “Gordon, I don’t want to mate with you.”

“Good.”

“I just... want to have sex with you, if we can.”

Narrowed eyes again. “You said that’s what makes more humans. What’s the difference?”

“It doesn’t always. It can just be for fun.” Apparently. If you had a man who could do it right. “It’s a part of romance, like hugging or kissing.”

He wavered. “...It’s one of the things you want that’ll make you happy, Jane?”

“Yeah,” she answered honestly.

Gordon actually looked swayed by that. He sat back on the sofa properly, although curled up defensively at the far end. “What do I have to do?”

“You’re making it sound like-” Like something bad she didn’t even want to get into. “It’s only fun, it’ll only make me happy, if you’re doing it because you want to, all right? I’m not going to force you unless you want to.”

He relaxed just a little. “Thank you. It doesn’t sound like such a bad thing now. What does it actually entail though?”

Jane looked at his suit. “Well...”


	9. Crazy

“You’re trying to take my special suit!”

“I’m trying to take it off! I’ll give it back!”

“That’s what the polices said!”

“Gordon, stop running around the apartment!”

“Jane, stop trying to take my special suit!”

“You have to be naked to have sex.” Now they were finally stationary, facing off over Jane’s bed after their little, indoor steeplechase.

“You said it was like hugging and kissing and I don’t need to take my suit off for those!” Gordon said.

“I need to know what your body looks like so I can help explain sex.” And he’d run off even at the mention of his suit being in the way of that. “I don’t know what... parts you have.”

“Parts? I’m not a robot, Jane.”

“I need to know...” God, what if he had another tentacle down there or something? “I need to know if your body works like a human’s or if I need to explain that as well.”

Gordon was starting to crouch. Was he going to be the one to lunge first? Or was he just trying to hide again? “Since we don’t procreate through parasites, Biology would suggest it’s different.”

“How can you be smart about that but run away like a kid when it comes to-?” Going around the bed just made Gordon try to dive across it.

He failed, landing in the middle with a bounce. “Hey! It’s soft! I might try sleeping on one of these bed things after all, Jane.”

“Good, because beds are where humans have sex.”

And now she’d successfully scared him off yet again.

“I don’t want parasite babies to take my special suit!”

Jane really hoped the neighbour downstairs couldn’t hear the things they argued about...

~#~

Gordon kept his distance without out-and-out avoiding her after that. Her bed too; he kept looking at it as if it were a green dress or something.

She couldn’t breach the subject with him again without Gordon edging out of the room. And now he was being even more careful about not letting much of his body show from under his suit; before Jane had seen high enough to know he had humanish elbow and knee-like joints to his limbs but now she barely saw more than his tentacle-tips and symmetrical feet.

Jane tried resorting to some seemingly innocent schemes to get around the issue: Since it was summer and all, “Can you swim, Gordon?” she asked one morning.

“Swim? That’s what fish do. I’m not a fish, Jane.” Considering Gordon reacted to even putting his tentacles in the washing up water with as much indignation as a very snooty housecat, it looked like getting him into a speedo was off the menu.

The next morning she tried being direct about it: “Why do you wear that suit all the time anyway? Does it do something special like your ball?”

“No, it’s just comfortable,” Gordon admitted. “If your Earth temperatures or radiation levels were worse it would protect me from them. And it’s got a pocket inside for my ball.”

“Don’t you ever want to try human clothes?” she tempted.

“They don’t look very comfortable. Except those.” He pointed to her skirt.

An intergalactic transvestite. Wonderful.

Jane tried thinking of some other schemes – If she spilt something on the suit perhaps he’d remove it to clean it? Or maybe if she got naked in front of him first- No, she could already hear the words ‘parasite babies’ just thinking that idea. He didn’t sleep to get it then, and from the way he had effortlessly rearranged her furniture single-handed she knew Gordon was physically much stronger than a human; physical force was out of the question.

Eventually Gordon himself solved the dilemma, quite a few mornings after their first stand-off over the bed: “I don’t mind you seeing me naked, Jane-”

“Then why have you been running away from me for the past week...?”

“-since we all walk round naked anyway back home, and so I can learn this.” The allure of something to learn would always make him stick around. “But you have to stay across the room from me and my suit.”

“You have the weirdest priorities, Gordon.”

“So do you humans! There’s already plenty of you! Why do you want to make more?”

It took a few more hours of argumentative explanation and promises but, true to his word, Gordon really didn’t seem at all bothered about the being naked part come that afternoon.

Well.

There wasn’t anything incompatible down there at least.

There wasn’t anything down there at all.

Just a plain green human-esque shape all over. Not even nipples or, “How do you use the bathroom when you go, Gordon?” Oh, apparently his body was morphy all over; a small hole appeared around where his stomach would be, sort of like a navel but actually a proper hole all the way in. That was a little... more than Jane wanted to know.

But even if he was featureless, nothing meant there was nothing that was incompatible.

“Jane?”

Just smooth, green flesh so strangely like a human in shape. In light of that fact it wasn’t too weird to... you know, was it?

“You’re doing that turning pink thing, Jane.”

Confused, Gordon turned back to the pile of his suit to check that wasn’t her actual target.

That was a really nice ass too...

“Jane!”

“Huh?” Jane snapped out of staring, or perhaps ogling, finally.

“When humans turn pink while looking at something that means you like it, or find it socially inappropriate,” he narrowed his eyes; “were you looking at me or my suit?”

“You,” she said. “And it was the first of those two meanings,” she clarified.

“Like those movies?” Gordon tried to remember what came after the looking-at-someone-while-turning-pink bits. They always got so distracted with questions though.

“Yes, or sort of.” They’d never watched any long enough to get to the first kiss, let alone further, so all Gordon had seen were infatuation blushes, not this. “It means I like you,” she confirmed, walking towards him.

“In a mating way.” He backed swiftly away. If not the suit, it was the parasite babies thing...

“Yes, but I already told you-” Jane stopped before he disappeared all the way down the side of her wardrobe, toeing his suit behind him to defend it. “Look, I’ll teach you how it works now – Just by talking about it – so will you stop worrying about parasites already?”

Gordon peered round the side, weighing that up before agreeing. He still insisted they sit at opposite ends of the bed while she explained, him on his suit, though.

Mostly it just got confusion out of him – “Why do you humans have so many holes to stick things in?” – and disgust – “But that’s where you excrete your waste products!” – There were some points of interest though – “You have more bodily fluids for it?”

“What is it with you and bodily fluids?” He’d already asked for small samples of her blood and saliva. Jane drew the line at any others though.

“We only have one; I want to learn about all the different types other species have. Besides,” Gordon was looking excited again, “you can actually make something with these ones!”

“We can make more humans, yeah.”

“Is that it?”

“Yeah.”

Gordon sulked a bit. “Not interested anymore...” She almost wished she had lied now; things were so much easier when his excitement carried him away into learning and doing anything she wanted. “...Can I see you, Jane?”

“Can you...?” Did he just ask...? “You want to see me naked, Gordon?”

“Sure. I haven’t heard of lots of these sorts of body parts before so I don’t know what they look like.”

It was just educational, just curiosity, she knew. But still hope persisted that maybe when he saw her naked...

Gordon did watch closely as she disrobed but only like watching the plumber take your heating system apart: Out of fascination for how something you took for granted everyday worked and to know what the fault is. “I don’t know why you humans wear so many clothes anyway,” he began while waiting on all her layers. “We only wear clothes for protection.”

“It’s kind of cold for us sometimes if we don’t,” Jane paused at her underwear. “And showing our sexual parts to each other isn’t allowed.”

“Really? Although all you humans seem to want to do is go round making more humans and seducing innocent aliens into mating with you?” Gordon was sitting with folded tentacles and legs on the bed.

“You’ve learnt to be cheeky,” Jane commented, too amused to mind the implications.

“It’s something I learnt from you humans.”

“Well, it’s okay to be cheeky to me but other humans might not understand if you do it in the wrong circumstances,” Jane said as she unhooked her bra. “They don’t understand you like I do.”

“Yes, Jane. I...” Gordon’s head flopped onto one side thoughtfully at the new sight before him.

Jane resisted the urge to fold her arms over her breasts at the attention, instead giving Gordon the best look at them possible.

“...Oh!” He was definitely pleasantly surprised. Jane drew a hopeful breath. “I see how to make you happy, Jane!”

And in a moment, Gordon had breasts too.

Oh God. They were actually moving backwards...


	10. The King of Bedside Manor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this chapter has, you know, what Jane's been gunning for just to forewarn people. It's more humorous than erotic but in any case, alien-mating shenanigans this chapter.

She had actually had to resort to _this_.

Jane couldn’t even remember the name of the guy she had got _this_ from since they had only been together for less than a week before she found _this_ in his bag and had never spoken to him again after the words, “It’s over.”

She looked at the page she had selected one final time, trying to decide if this was a good idea or if Gordon was going to find some way to get this all wrong too. At least he’d be a very good length if he followed this.

“Here.” Jane interrupted him lying on his back, slowly examining his ball from all sides.

“Book?” Gordon took it. “Oh, a thin-book!”

“Magazine.” She’d leave out the actual name of the stuff so he wouldn’t be able to go into a shop and buy more. “This is what a naked male human looks like.”

Gordon examined it. He didn’t look too impressed. “Are you sure there isn’t meant to be a flag tied on the end?”

“No.” Not a bad idea though.

“So this is what you expected me to look like?” He looked up at her, all pretty eyes and effeminate pink streaks.

“It’s what I hoped you’d look like, I guess.”

Gordon put his tentacle tip right on the crucial difference. “I think I can make that for you, Jane. If I know how it works.”

“You mean the insides and stuff?”

“Yes.”

“Well, most men seem to keep their brain down there...” Jane began to mutter.

“There’s a brain in there?!”

One day she’d remember Gordon had much better hearing than a human. “No. I was just being- It was a joke.”

“Oh. It’d have to be a pretty small brain to fit in there.”

“Exactly.”

Gordon looked up, wondering why Jane was smirking when she ought to be explaining to him.

Jane looked down at the photo. “Um...” For all she knew their many problems, how men actually worked... “Go get your library card, Gordon.”

~#~

One visit later and ‘Gordon Lledelro’ had checked out his brand new book on human sexual biology and behaviour. (And a book about rabbits. The book about rabbits was completely unrelated, despite the connotations. He’d merely come to them on his ‘Earth Animals to Learn About’ list.)

Was that really how human males worked? It seemed, “Complicated,” they agreed.

Gordon flicked to the part on human females.

“What are you doing?”

“You humans are so poorly designed. I’m sure I can design a better way for us to get the job done!”

Jane really didn’t like the way he was looking at that diagram of the vagina as if he was planning a bank heist...

~#~

Finally Gordon had finished the book. (He’d finished the book on rabbits too and said that had given him some ideas, less reassuringly.)

When he put down the book and picked her up instead, with a laugh of all things, Jane actually began to feel a bit nervous. “I understand now!” This was the first time he ever had picked her up. And he really was strong. “You poor humans are designed so all you can think about is mating! No wonder you can’t sail the skies like we can.”

“We’ve got to the Moon. And sent unmanned things to other planets in our solar system, I think,” Jane defended.

“Really? I’m amazed you managed to find your way out of the trees with how you’re designed.”

“Am I just here to get insulted,” Jane asked as she was set down on the bed in her room, “or did you have some other reason for bringing me in here?”

“You spend your whole lives playing a silly, little game to find the best possible mate,” Gordon carried on regardless of her, “and although I don’t understand how, somehow you’ve decided I have the best genes to add to your offspring-”

“Sometimes I wonder how I decided that too...”

“-even though I’m not sure our species are genetically compatible-”

“Is this going somewhere?” Jane sat back and looked at him still standing over her.

“We’re having sex!” He threw his arms wide under his suit.

“Are we?”

“Aren’t we?” His arms dropped. “Don’t you want to have sex with me anymore, Jane?”

“I’m just a little surprised _you_ now want to have sex with me.”

“That’s the power of learning, Jane!” Gordon enthused. “I know I can’t get parasite babies from you now and our chromosomes are naturally incompatible so unless I alter them I can’t give you them either, even if I were to inject my genetic material inside your vagina.”

“Please don’t.” He was beginning to remind her she was about to have sex with an alien. Having sex with Gordon was a different matter; he was the silly, loveable idiot better than any human man she’d ever found. But a green, tentacled and morphic alien? Thinking about him like that creeped her out.

“I’m not going to, Jane,” he reassured her, removing his suit willingly this time. “Unlike you helpless humans, I consciously choose whether I produce it or not anyway. You’re in no danger from me.”

Now he had crawled atop her naked Jane wasn’t feeling so certain of that. “What are you going to going to do?” She eyed the area of his crotch where nothing had yet appeared.

“Well I’m incapably designed to feel any sexual pleasure myself,” Tentacles sure could make quick work of shirt buttons, “but I can feel pleasure in general and emotional states like that are a form of energy I can absorb. So I’m going to concentrate on giving you as much pleasure as possible and then share your orgasm with you!”

Gordon really was walking that thin line between creepy and better than any human man could ever be very closely today.

But he was still a man in one way; he couldn’t figure out how to get her bra off without help. Jane used that to get enough time to ask, “Is it safe? You’re not... taking my lifeforce to feed yourself, are you?” Maybe she ought to be more careful about touching him.

“No, Jane!” Gordon laughed and smiled. “If wanted to, I could absorb enough of a human’s lifeforce to kill them in 2.32 seconds! But I’m just going to take the pleasure energy from you; it’s a totally different kind.”

Okay, he was officially in creepy territory today.

“No?” Gordon assumed from her face, looking a little sad.

At any time he could have... At any time he still _could_ kill her that easily _._ “...You’re just taking half of my pleasure for yourself?”

“Yep!”

“...All right.” She couldn’t believe she trusted him, but she did.

Now she had lifted up, Gordon could feel around for these elusive little hooks on the strappy thing on her chest. “I read about all the ways the female body experiences pleasure for you. I don’t think it was a very thorough book though, so can I explore you, Jane? I want to learn about the human body more closely anyway.”

“Oh wonderful. The great cliché has finally arrived...” she muttered, helping remove her shorts.

Of course Gordon cocked his head like a puppy.

“Aliens and probing,” Jane jokingly explained; “it’s what all the crazy people who think they’ve been abducted by aliens say.” Although, staring at the green face in front of her, maybe not so crazy.

“I thought I was the first one to this planet.” He was confused. “But I’m not allowed to learn then?”

How could she resist those pretty eyes? Jane found she no longer cared.

Gordon didn’t understand why Jane was suddenly holding his mouth prisoner with hers, or moving his tentacles down to her hips and into the one bit of fabric she had left. She was warm and wet there; what had the book said that meant again?

He knew what a human male was meant to do right now. Jane had said her original hope was. “Jane.”

She was stopped and let Gordon push back, sitting astride her thighs where he morphed his body right in front of her. Just like in the porn magazine – length and everything – Wow. The perfect man’s body, ignoring the colour.

But it wasn’t Gordon’s body.

“Change back,” Jane asked, touching his skin gently.

“Did I get something wrong?” he fretted, looking down at himself.

“No. I did.” She took his chin and kissed him. “Just be yourself, Gordon; what’s the point in having sex with an alien if I don’t embrace all the tentacles and green goo?”

It looked like an alien concept to his eyes. That was the first time Jane realised, in Gordon’s eyes, she was the alien. Everything he had learnt, every behaviour he had adopted for her...

“Just do what’s comfortable for you. Whatever you want.” Jane kissed him again. Gordon never objected to that. He had even requested practice and got rather good at it, for whatever reason he liked it.

What did Gordon want to do? He apparently wanted to offer her one of his tentacles dripping with goo.

“I didn’t mean that literally, by the way,” Jane added, looking not too enthusiastically at the offer. But if Gordon had only one bodily fluid then... “Is it safe? To ingest?”

Gordon waved his tentacle at his own face, frowning at it. “Probably? It’s like liquid flesh, and you eat meat!” He offered it to her again encouragingly.

“Um...” Well, Gordon had so far proven immune to human diseases so she was probably immune to any of his.

Jane let it between her lips. Gordon tasted... not bad at all. A mix of sweet and tangy – She wasn’t going to call it fruity and get scowled at – He tasted the same all over, when she then found her mouth drawn to the skin of his neck and upper chest. It seemed to be making him uneasy – Probably his herbivore, prey instincts kicking in compared to an omnivorous apex predator – so she stopped.

Left to take the initiative, Gordon’s natural curiosity took over. He gravitated towards her breasts and genitals but it wasn’t like other men; his love was for her, not her body. He was only concentrating there, and all the exploratory things he wanted to do, to find the best ways to give her pleasure.

Plus being able to morph any part of his body into any shape? An extra arm for support? Or as many tentacles as she could wanted caressing and pleasuring her? How could he be so gentle with things when she knew he was so strong?

But the best of all? That he got all of his pleasure from ensuring the most for his partner first. He drained some for himself, sure, but he couldn’t just take for himself. It was all about _them_ , both of them.

“Gordon...”

“Hm?” He stopped, looking up from her breasts. Then looking up from suddenly pinned beneath her with a ‘What game is this?’ smile.

His prey-like unease soon returned, particularly as Jane was now biting at his neck while she held him down? “Um, I’m not sure I’m edible for humans, Jane.” He tried to squirm away. “No matter what you all keep incorrectly saying, I’m not fruit.”

“I’m not eating you, Gordon,” Jane as she ran her tongue down the side of his neck.

“Are you trying to take energy back from me, Jane?” Humans took energy through their mouths. The book had said something about mouths being used for sex too so maybe this was it. “Am I taking too much?”

“You’re talking too much.” And now she was kissing him into submission again, then pulling back. “But I like your voice,” she told him, pulling back and returning to his chest. “I like everything about you...” Kissing, touching, tasting... “What feels good for you, Gordon? I want to make you feel good.”

“You feel good, Jane.” He didn’t understand why though; all she was doing was feeling his body and kissing it all over yet Jane was still getting pleasure from something.

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear apparently. She had pulled back, frowning thoughtfully at his face. Then one hand reached for him.

Gordon flinched that she would touch his pink streak, even very gently. And she wouldn’t stop, even when he tried to roll away from her. Just gentle strokes with the side of her thumb, “Jane...!” then even gentler kisses on the other one.

“How does that feel?” she murmured into his ear, giving only a little respite before continuing.

Gordon struggled and whined but the word that ultimately passed his lips was, “Good. I don’t know why but it feels good, Jane.”

“I think you’re more like a human than you thought,” she said, again touching somewhere so vulnerable and precious kindly. He was placing his trust in another living being and having it rewarded; “that’s what intimacy is,” Jane explained.

“I’m meant to be pleasing you though, Jane.” His long lashes were fluttering, mostly shut as he let himself enjoy the small movements of her thumbs.

“You are.”

“Why?”

“Because I-” Jane caught herself. But then, finally, she let herself go. “Because I love you, Gordon.”

His eyes half-opened, still quite shadowed. They searched hers. “Love is important to humans, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Very.”

They hadn’t watched or researched enough together for Gordon to understand it yet. Jane could almost feel her love lessening as she looked at him and thought about-

“Wait, are you taking my love, Gordon?” It actually _was_ lessening.

Then it all came back. “I was checking what love is, Jane. I’m not sure if it’s entirely the same but we have something similar, and that’s the same thing I feel for you,” Gordon said.

He had no idea what that meant to her, why Jane suddenly held him so tightly and started get wet around her eyes. She said she wasn’t sad though when he asked. “Make love to me, Gordon,” that was all Jane said.

“You mean have sex?”

Jane shook her head. “Express your love, however you want to, whatever that means to you.”

Well, the way he wanted to express it did involve multiple orgasms, half the pleasure taken for himself. But the intensity and devotion he treated her with, “That was incredible, Gordon...” Jane finally exhaled afterwards. He wasn’t even out of breath, although he did breathe – Well, in at least. Then his chest somehow deflated so it was close enough – as he lay in her bed now, holding her on one side of his chest. Jane was still completely flushed and panting, and never, ever letting go of him.

“No wonder you humans mate so much; your bodies really do reward you with a lot of pleasure for it!”

She ignored his standard, overly-cheerful observation on her species. “Did you enjoy it?” Jane stroked his face, cupping his cheek and thumbing at the pink stripe.

Gordon twitched and struggled again but he seemed to enjoy it. “I enjoyed your pleasure, yes Jane.”

“But did you enjoy the rest? The... exploring me,” Probing really was the right word at some point, “and giving me pleasure?”

“Sure!” He hugged her tighter, holding her to his bare body in the afterglow. Jane could have melted into him if she was metaphorical, or if Gordon literally softened his skin. “I like being with you, Jane. I like being able to do this special intimacy thing with you.”

It was all about them, not just her or him. “Thank you, Gordon...” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Will you hold me while I sleep tonight?”

“Sure.” He shifted her to make Jane a bit more comfortable in his arms. “I want to learn about how humans sleep.”

“Okay. I’ll probably be asleep soon.” He really had kept her up late with all this, not that Jane was complaining at all. She was just lying in Gordon’s arms, her smiling face pressed to his green chest, listening to- “You have a really weird heartbeat.”

“I have four hearts so technically it’s a heart-rhythm,” Gordon corrected. “Having one powerful system makes much more sense than lots of smaller, weaker ones: each one’s so likely to fail and bring the rest down with it! No wonder you all...”

Jane drifted off to his rambling words, finally held in loving arms.


	11. Life, In a Nutshell

Gordon shared her bed every night after that. He seemed to develop more of an appetite for sex the more that he had it as well. If getting up in the mornings before had been a drag, now they were a physical drag trying to make him let go of her. He was definitely a cuddler.

He was also the type to walk around the apartment completely naked, apparently.

After seeing Jane had no intentions of doing anything with his special suit, Gordon had given up wearing it when they were alone together. She actually had to nag him to put it back on whenever they went out now.

That meant she could always see him holding his ball now, stripes of red, blue and white constantly cradled in one green tentacle.

“What is it with men and holding their balls?” Jane joked one morning, cooking breakfast whilst he sat at the side on the stool. One arm was leant on the work surface. The other was holding his ball in his lap, right on top of his crotch. Gordon was sort of grinning, sort of smirking at her too.

“Do human men hold their balls too, Jane?” he asked with a knowing tone; he’d picked up on the misandry this household ran on now. “Do they even have balls to hold?” he asked more genuinely.

“Discounting all the stupid sport balls they like holding and playing with, balls are slang for testicles.”

“Ohh!” Gordon had the look of someone who’d just gotten two dozen jokes at once. “What kind of energy do they get from those?”

“Stupidity, as far as I can tell.”

“Oh, Jane.” Gordon really grinned. “Aren’t you lucky you found an alien?”

Talking of aliens, come September, Gordon found a new favourite TV show to watch. Why he always insisted on watching _The X-Files_ with no lights on she didn’t know but really? The first episode to air in season 2 was ‘Little Green Men’. Gordon might have been over 6 foot but the first _X-Files_ episode after he turned up was the one where aliens were finally shown to exist? It was almost too perfect.

Especially since Gordon said some of the aliens they featured actually existed as the weeks went by: “Oh, I met one of them.” “I went to their planet. Not a very nice smell. Not much to learn about either.” “They don’t actually look like that; the colour’s all wrong.” No other lledelros yet though; Gordon seemed a bit sad about that. Whenever Jane suspected he wasn’t crushing on Scully at least. “She reminds me of you, Jane!”

Jane had to admit she was surprised when Gordon offered to take her sailing the galaxy in his ship, “Only if you want to, Jane. I’m very happy to stay here and keep learning about your planet too.”

Be an astronaut... If nothing worked out here on Earth, why not leave? “Would it be safe for me?”

Gordon’s shrug was hardly reassuring.

She had another 60 Earth-years of life, hopefully, for those things. Gordon said he had about another 100, 100 already gone – Discovering the age difference between them was almost a bigger shock than the species difference – But either way there was no hurry right now.

Maybe one day though, like all their future maybes.

Maybe one day Jane would finally get a proper job she loved.

Maybe one day they would move out of this apartment and get a proper house; she had always liked the idea of moving to the Danforth.

Maybe one day they would see if their chromosomes could be altered to make them biologically compatible. Any children would probably be pale green little monsters with all of Gordon’s curiosity and Jane’s stubbornness but despite that it was almost too interesting not to try.

Maybe one day...

“Gordon,” Jane asked in the dark.

“Yes, Jane?” His eyes opened, watching her lying in his arms but not yet asleep.

She turned to him, feeling his arms pull her body closer in to his. His ball rested safely between her shoulder blades. “Do you know what marriage is, Gordon?”

“I’ve heard about it but I don’t really know. I’d like to learn though.”

Of course he would.

So she taught him about the ceremony, about the ring, about the vows. About the significance of it all.

They couldn’t have the ceremony. They couldn’t wear rings when Gordon didn’t have fingers to wear one on. They could have a go at the vows but the traditional ones hardly seemed applicable and neither had a clue how to make up their own.

That only left them with the significance.

“It means we love each other, that we’re partners and are making a commitment to stay together for the rest of our lives. Do you feel like that about me, Gordon?”

“I do, Jane.”

He was even holding her hands in his tentacles like a little girl, beaming his face off. Considering he stayed home each day looking after the house while she was out at work or college... Anyway, “I do too, Gordon.”

It took all their skills to disguise Gordon as human enough for it to work – Their usual line about him being from a rare tribe in the Amazon with odd skin colour only worked with people too scared or lazy to disagree – but it did. “I’m not taking your name though,” Jane told him as they signed the form.

“I don’t think you’d make a very good ‘Gordon’, Jane.”

“Idiot.”

‘Jane St. Clair’ and ‘Gordon Lledelro’: A young couple who brought no witnesses of their own, married in a downtown Toronto registry office, declined all ceremony and left as suddenly as they came one summery July day.

~#~

“Gordon...” Jane’s hand trailed out of the bed, finding the top of his head to fuss the short, black curls of his hair. They had grown long enough to flop about just a little now, making him look even more cute and roguish. “What are you doing?”

She heard that sound again, like a zipper being unzipped whilst on helium. “I’m making something, Jane.”

He was sat cross-legged on the floor beside the bed, something in his lap that she couldn’t make out in the dark bedroom with the light only coming from the bedside lamp behind her. “Is it going to take much longer?” She stroked one curl in particular, twirling it around her finger.

“It’s finished now.” He turned to her, letting the light show his special suit in his lap. “See?”

A strip of something shiny, small and thin was held up in one tentacle. “What is that?” It looked like the same material as his suit. “Did your suit manage to reproduce somehow?”

Gordon laughed. “No, Jane!”

“I wouldn’t put it past your clothes...”

“You said we can’t wear rings since I don’t have fingers,” There were two of the small strips actually, “but I do have arms so we can wear these. Gold, right?”

“I meant the... metal...” He had taken her hand, draping one strip around her wrist.

“There was darkness, there was light,” Gordon began, slowly turning the band around to have the gap at the top. “There was day and there was night. There was wrong and there was right. And then there was you, Jane.

“You didn’t even know me but you treated me to a date. You didn’t even know me but you called me a mate.

“I’ve learnt about your pizza and your weather. And now the two of us will always live together.

“So from this day I’d like to stay always as your lover.” When Gordon put the two ends of the strip together they fused into one unbreakable band. “You and me as we, Jane.”

“What...?” Which to ask about? The weird, song-like vows or the- “Is this a piece of your suit, Gordon?”

“Yes. It fuses back together if you put two ripped edges together. It takes a lot to tear it so it ought never to come off now.” He offered up the other strip and his own wrist- Or what counted as a wrist for a tentacle.

Jane turned her own bracelet round first, finding no lines. It was perfect. Too snug to come off over her hand, loose enough not to chafe or bother her though.

She took the other strip of gold material, and Gordon’s tentacle, wrapping it around his wrist in the same fashion. “I hope you don’t expect me to make up rhyming vows too...” She hesitated before closing the band though. “I don’t think I could say you dazzled me when we first met, Gordon. But somehow it wasn’t long until you were in my life, at my work every day and then living with me.

“I thought you were a traitor when you left, and a coward when you came back. You act like a fourteen-year-old and sometimes you’re so stupid I think you’re making fun of me.

“You didn’t promise me heaven. Even despite what you are, this isn’t been like any kind of glamorous, celebrity romance.

“But it’s not been about whether you stay or go, whether you’re faithful or shameful. I’m no longer tired with you, Gordon. You’ve proven that things can be different.” Jane completed the band. “That’s why I love you.”

Gordon lifted and turned the band to inspect it as well; it was a bit tighter on him since he had no hand to keep it from sliding off. He finally said, “My vows were better. Mine rhymed.”

“Get back into bed already, Gordon.”

With a grin, Gordon pounced on top of her. “Jane,” He positioned himself, lips above hers; “Jane... Come on.”


End file.
